About Huguette Caland

With a storied pedigree as the daughter of the first president of postcolonial Lebanon, Huguette Caland has been forging a bold artistic career since the early 1960s, creating intricate, playful, and memory-infused paintings, drawings, sculptures, and clothing. “I’m a line person,” she has aptly declared, referring to her work’s delicate lines that are inspired by the Byzantine mosaics and handwoven rugs that blanketed the walls of her native Beirut and childhood home. At the beginning of her career, she painted and sculpted erotic, semi-abstract bodyscapes, exploring amorousness and anatomy with a humorous, light touch. By 1970, she had moved to Paris, where she designed a line of haute couture caftans for Pierre Cardin and started to create the minutely patterned, textile-like compositions that she pursues to this day.